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Targets hit and missed

In many ways, football is a simple game: the team that scores
the most goals, wins. Yet in every week, in every league and in
every single match, there are intriguing statistical sub-plots that
help make the beautiful game the fascinating spectacle that it
is.

That's why, every week, we at
FIFA.com take a look at the numbers behind the
results, highlighting football's biggest winners and losers
from the week just past. In this, the latest of our round-ups, we
reflect on the achievements of Messrs. Canizares, Donovan and
Inzaghi among others, while explaining why Standard Liege and
Celtic's Scott McDonald missed out on records of their own.

500 Spanish league matches is a milestone that, until
very recently, Santiago Canizares looked highly unlikely to reach.
The 38-year-old goalkeeper had, after all, found himself firmly out
in the cold under Ronald Koeman, the Dutchman having taken the
fateful and ultimately fatal decision to sideline Canizares and his
fellow Valencia stalwarts Miguel Angulo and David Albelda.
Koeman's departure, however, paved the way for the long-serving
former Spain international to return to the fold, and it was
fitting that he should mark his 500th appearance in Spain's top
two tiers with a clean sheet. Angulo also returned to reach a
landmark of his own - 300 La Liga games for
Los Che - and the pair combined to secure a 3-0 win over
Osasuna that helped the troubled Spanish giants avoid their longest
losing streak since 1997.

186 meetings makes Everton versus Aston Villa the
English top flight's most-played fixture. This statistic might
surprise those fans who have only become familiarised with the
English scene since the advent of the Premier League in 1992, but
the records will show that the likes of Manchester United,
Liverpool and Chelsea cannot compete with the Toffees and
Villains' combined tally of 203 seasons in the nation's
upper tier. Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that the
balance of power in these 186 meetings is perfectly poised, with
these venerable football institutions boasting 70 wins apiece.
Rarely, however, have Everton and Villa been as evenly-matched as
this season, and Sunday's 2-2 stalemate at Goodison - the
fixture's 46th draw - has kept both these European rivals
firmly in the hunt to claim fifth place.

42 years ago, on 3 January 1966, Stevie Chalmers - one
of Jock Stein's fabled Lisbon Lions - scored a hat-trick as
Celtic coasted to a 5-1 derby victory over arch-rivals Rangers. In
the decades since, no-one from either side of the Glasgow divide
has managed to emulate that feat in a league match, so when Scott
McDonald - already with a double to his name - won a penalty in
Sunday's Old Firm clash at Celtic Park, many assumed history
was about to be made. The complication? The Aussie had missed a
penalty at the same end, against the same opponents, less than two
weeks earlier and with the score tied at 2-2 and Celtic's title
hopes hinging on ball hitting net, the psychological burden was
adjudged too great. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Shunsuke
Nakamura had been designated as the Bhoys' first and
second-choice takers, but it was Barry Robson who grabbed the ball
and slammed home a spot-kick that lifted Celtic five points clear
of a Rangers team who still hold three games in hand.

30 successive matches without defeat now gives
Anorthosis Famagusta the longest unbeaten run in world football.
The Cypriots can lay claim to this honour after Standard Liege
watched their hopes of becoming the first Belgian side in 74 years
to survive an entire season undefeated evaporate in Sunday's
Walloon derby. Charleroi did what no team has managed since
Excelsior on 19 May 2007 by inflicting a league defeat on the
newly-crowned champions, this as Anorthosis were enjoying a break
from a campaign that has seen them cruise to a 13th Cypriot League
title. Having dethroned APOEL Nicosia as champions, the team
managed by former Georgia and Newcastle United star Temuri Ketsbaia
are now just 180 minutes away from going one better than Standard
by ending the season without a single defeat.

9 years without a domestic trophy came to an end for
Feyenoord on Sunday when the Rotterdam giants lifted the Dutch Cup
for the 11th time. The nine-year drought was the longest Feyenoord
had endured since the introduction of professional football in the
Netherlands in 1954, with their last domestic prize having come in
August 1999 in the Dutch Super Cup. A continental triumph in the
2002 UEFA Cup did provide some welcome cheer during this period of
underachievement, but Feyenoord will hope that Sunday's 2-0 win
over Roda JC can act as a springboard for them to return to a
position of strength in the traditionally dominant Dutch trinity
which also comprises PSV Eindhoven and Ajax.

8 goals represents the kind of return some strikers
can only hope to muster over an entire season. Landon Donovan and
Filippo Inzaghi, by contrast, have managed to rack up this tally in
their last four games, earning both richly deserved praise. After
Donovan hit a hat-trick in Los Angeles Galaxy's 5-2 victory
over city rivals Chivas USA on Saturday, team-mate David Beckham
led the tributes: "He's a special player. He proved
tonight that he's not just about scoring goals inside the
box." Carlo Ancelotti was similarly effusive in his praise
after the phenomenon that is
Superpippo nabbed a trademark poacher's treble in a
4-1 win at Livorno. "He, like Kaka, is in great form,"
said the AC Milan coach. "Right now they're forming a
formidable partnership."